1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to breast support devices. In particular, it relates to a brassiere having “floating” cups that are fully or partially detached from the brassiere structure for the purpose of independently positioning the cups without disturbing the position of the brassiere as a whole. Independently movable floating brassiere cups allow the wearer to dynamically adjust the manner in which the brassiere supports and controls the position of the breasts and to enhance the breasts' cleavage, and to enhance the perceived fullness and firmness of the breasts. In addition, the floating cup solves the problem of approximately eighty percent of females who are wearing the wrong size bra.
2. Background of the Invention
The use of brassieres to support a woman's breasts is well-known in the art. Traditionally, these devices have provided support for the breasts, but they do not allow individual custom positioning of the cups or the breast. More recently, attempts have been made to enhance the cleavage and appearance of a woman's breasts by pushing-up and pushing-in the individual breast using push-up cups or adding push-up inserts into the brassiere, or by pulling brassiere cups together via straps, thereby enhancing the perceived size of the breasts as well as the cleavage.
While prior art brassieres serve their purpose to an extent, they also have disadvantages. In particular, prior art brassieres are restricted in how much bra cups can be moved inward because the cups are attached to the brassiere and their movement is limited. As a result, the cleavage enhancement they provide is limited. This is particularly true for females having a small breast size, such as A and B size cups. With prior art brassieres, typically only larger breast size females have significant cleavage enhancement.
Another disadvantage associated with the prior art is that cups are fully attached and fixed in one position (i.e. cups are not movable) to a brassiere as a whole, when cups are moved toward each other it pulls on the entire garment and disturbs the position of a brassiere, thus resulting in: (a) Improper garment fit, (b) Tightness of the chest because of fabric pulling, (c) Discomfort, (d) Fabric wrinkling on the side of the bra back, and (e) Insignificant cleavage enhancement for bra cup sizes A and B.
Another disadvantage associated with prior art brassieres is that when breasts are pulled together laterally for the purpose of enhancing cleavage, the brassiere also occasionally produces some undesirable side effects. In particular, when the brassiere pulls the breasts together, it sometimes creates the appearance of creases or wrinkles in the breasts which make the breasts unattractive and increases the apparent age of the woman. It would be desirable to have a method of adjusting and controlling a brassiere such that the cleavage of a woman could be improved while still maintaining a smooth surface texture on the skin of the breasts.
Another disadvantage associated with prior art brassieres is that studies have shown that a significant percentage of women, up to eighty percent in some cases, wear the wrong size brassiere, which results in discomfort. It would be desirable to have a brassiere in which the cups could be independently adjusted to accommodate a wider variety of breast and body shapes such that the brassieres provide a more comfortable fit.
While addressing the basic desirability of using brassieres, the prior art has failed to provide a device which allows woman with any breast size, including smaller cup sizes such as A and B, to dynamically control the amount of cleavage provided by a brassiere, which allows an individual woman to dynamically control the perceived size of the breasts, and the position and cleavage of each breast independent of the other breast without the drawbacks of the prior art, and which allows each cup to be individually positioned to maximize comfort.